I put up three posts on Substack to see what they did. They got a lot more views than the same posts received on WordPress. Is there a future there? I don’t know.
The challenge I face, and many others like me, is to monetize my writing. I have one book done and privately published. I’m about a fourth of the way through a second. I need resources to revise the first book and publish it on major platforms as an eBook, audio book, and on-demand paper book. By the time I get that finished, I should be ready to repeat the process for the second book. Our pensions are presently sufficient to live, yet there is nothing extra for book publishing. I have to raise money to get my writing out there.
The model for Substack seems straightforward. Put your work up, and structure subscriptions so there is a free option, combined with tiered subscription plans that offer subscribers something extra. If I can develop a large following of paid subscribers, I might then afford publishing my two and any future books I might write. I could even publish the books on Substack as a premium benefit for paid subscribers. Details of that could be worked out.
The question is can I develop a following beyond my loyal readers? It’s an open question that’s partly answered by my other public writing… from which I receive plenty of feedback. If anything, my exodus from most social media platforms has increased the number of visitors to this website. But will they convert to Substack and pay?
WordPress offers a pay model, which I haven’t explored. I expect it was to keep up with the Jones’s at Substack. When comparing the two platforms, number of viewers trumps workable software every time. It is Substack or nothing, based on viewers, I think.
Maybe I am looking at monetization wrong. Perhaps I could figure out how much money I need for the two books and do a Go Fund Me campaign. That could work. It seems less complicated than an ongoing subscription project. I could also start streaming on Twitch or another platform that generates income. Whatever it is, I may have to add a fundraising hat to my closet to keep up.
I’d be curious to know reader reactions to this topic in the comments.
Sunday was the annual award ceremony for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I’ll just straight up say it: I don’t recognize any of the honored films, actors, and technicians and can’t find the impetus to learn who or what they are.
It’s hard to say what happened. When I returned from Europe and attended graduate school, I saw multiple movies every week. When we gathered for the recent holidays the family viewed a made for television movie. Before that, who knows when I saw the last one. It had been years.
I’m not the only one. The online service Quora posted, “Less than 10 percent of Americans go to the movies regularly today, but that has been true for the last 20 years or so. Now overseas markets, especially China, bring in the big box office.” Streaming services, installed home theaters, and changing preferences contribute to the decline. Movies have been in decline more than 20 years for me.
In 1986, I wrote a high school friend about this:
I have been thinking about the motion picture of late. It has been about a year since we saw one in a theater. Probably will be as long before we see another one. Film was a crucial part of my masters degree. I saw so many. I thought about and digested them constantly. Here in Cedar Rapids, film has taken a back seat in my intellectual journey. Rather, I have changed my perspective.
What is essentially an entertainment became, for a brief instant, an inspiration. Film is visual, musical, and most of all, a social statement. By watching so many, I studied one of the societies in which I live. But now, this study finished, I turn to application of this knowledge. (Letter to Dennis Brunning, April 19, 1986).
I had viewed maybe ten films in Europe over three years. One of them was Patton which we showed repeatedly to soldiers in the field. I became an expert at showing a film movie using a generator and a lamp projector.
For me, movies were part of an intellectual process. It began when I saw Apocalypse Now in Springfield, Illinois while on my trip home from Europe in 1979. Francis Ford Coppola’s film opened up a new world of creativity. When I finished mining the movie vein in the early 1980s, film-watching at theaters was mostly over for me. It became a “date night” special we did only a time or two per year.
Back in the day, before there were talkies, movies were available everywhere. Many urban neighborhoods had a place to pay a dime and see a movie. They were cheap entertainment. Over time, these storefront neighborhood theaters disappeared to be replaced by movie theaters on the scale of the RKO Orpheum chain. My home town had four of these, the Capitol, State, RKO Orpheum, and Coronet. Next came multiplex theaters where concession sales were consolidated for many motion pictures playing in close proximity. In our community of about 250,000 there was at one time a single multiplex. Traveling a half hour by car to see a movie eroded interest in new release films.
Home movie watching had its heyday with the advent of VHS cassette tapes of movies, and later DVDs. I continue to have a collection of VHS tapes stored in two banker’s boxes. The technology to play them has become too expensive to justify getting a player. It was great while it lasted. When we lived in Indiana in the late 1980s and early ’90s I would stop at the video rental store after work, get a movie or two, and order pizza delivery for supper. It made a good, inexpensive Friday night in our small family.
Today, I just don’t know. Groups I know get on Discord to live stream a movie for people viewing from all over the globe. Some people are addicted to Netflix and its equivalents. Viewing a movie on television in the family room morphed into each family member watching something different on individual screens. The movie itself seems to be beside the point.
The short analysis of why movie watching is in decline is people don’t have “spare time” the way we did. We view every moment as an opportunity to be occupied with activities. We believe we have more activities than time. There is too much investment of time to see a movie at a multiplex. The same social behavior impacting movies also affects reading, which, as I have written, is also in decline. The idea of spare time and needing something to do with it, just doesn’t seem to be present in society the same way it was 40 years ago.
Some day I will take my DVD copies of The Matrix, Out of Africa, Blade Runner, and Lord of the Rings to the living room and watch them. Revisiting my favorites does not help the broader problems of the motion picture industry. I’m not sure going to the multiplex a couple of times a year would either.
Try though I did to reach out, my Republican members of Congress did not hear the message. All of them voted yes on the reconciliation framework. Following is what I wrote my congresswoman:
Rep. Miller-Meeks, Vote no on the reconciliation bill. During your recent telephone town hall you mentioned the reconciliation bill and ways to offset the tax incentives it creates/extends with savings from Federal government operations. I have studied the matter, and some of the proposed budget cuts, and have more to learn. Based on what I have learned, I urge you to vote no on the reconciliation bill. Providing tax cuts to the well-off in Iowa and in the country at the expense of programs less well-off people depend upon is the wrong direction. In part, your parsing of the Medicaid cuts at the telephone town hall helped me understand the direction, and I thank you for that explanation. Good luck making your decision. I hope you vote no on the final reconciliation bill. Regards, Paul Deaton, resident of the first Congressional District.
Somewhere in Miller-Meeks D.C. office likely rests a tick list on the bill with my email registered as a no.
Because the Republican House is so narrowly divided, they know they have to stick together to get anything done. So far, they are. As the chaos in the federal administration unfolds, there will be pressure on members of congress to do the right thing. Regarding my senators and congresswoman, I won’t take no for an answer, so they will hear from me again during the remainder of this spring and summer. That’s when it counts the most because after that, it’s time for the 2026 midterms.
Here is Congresswoman Miller-Meeks’ response to me email.
Saturday I went to town to view the selection at the public library used book sale. There wasn’t much of one. The perimeter of the room had the usual tables of young adult, romance and adult fiction books with an ample amount available. My interest is usually in the center tables, which this year were only four or five, compared to the usual 10 to 12. My goal was to buy no more than three for a free will donation. I couldn’t find a single one, so I came home.
It shouldn’t be surprising so few books were donated. The bottom line, according to Gallup, is fewer people are reading books in 2025. Reading appears to be in decline as a favorite way for Americans to spend their free time. Less reading, fewer books at the annual sale. Life as it is in Big Grove Township.
I participated in the People’s Union national retail boycott on Friday. The plan for no shopping changed when we received a new prescription at a doctor’s appointment. I bought gasoline, since the car was running on fumes, and made two stops for supplies related to the clinical visit. A lot of people were out on the street in vehicles. Costco had the fewest people inside on a Friday afternoon since I can remember. Not sure any impact will be felt or that demand for goods and services changed. The boycott was something small that people could support. These days, we need stuff like that.
I have a lot to say about the meeting between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine yesterday. Here’s what Ben Rhodes posted yesterday, which reduces it to an easily understandable paragraph: “People need to understand that we are in an entirely new paradigm. It is now Russia (and) the US against Ukraine and Europe. This is not a shift in US policy, it is a transformation of what kind of country the United States is in the world.”
There is widespread support for Ukraine in the United States. It just can’t be found in the oval office.
I read each morning near a window with an eastward view. As I sip my coffee, I notice light in the east when the sun begins to rise. All of a sudden it is dawning before 6:30 a.m. I feel compelled to get out in it and watch for a colorful sky along the state park trail. Longer days mean a hastening pace for the year, a late winter rush until summer solstice. When the days are longer, our lives feel shorter as we must rise and engage with the challenges of a new day, setting aside quotidian things like reading.
Perhaps the most egregious aspect of the new administration is their blind pursuit of tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of the population. The tax bill/budget passed by the U.S. House last week proposed $4.5 Trillion in tax cuts to be offset by $2 Trillion in cuts to programs Americans depend upon. In other words, the House wants to borrow another $2.5 Trillion to fund tax cuts. The Senate majority seems poised to go along. I don’t know anyone, including my conservative friends, who want the federal government to borrow more money to fund tax cuts.
Think of it like our family budget. As I wrote earlier this month, I re-negotiated how we interface with our internet and television provider. The savings per month worked out to about $120. Should those savings be used to fund other new things, or should they be applied to reduce short term debt? Obviously short term debt should be as close to zero as is possible to make room for emergencies. That’s where the savings should be applied. Assuming household finances are stable, that’s what I will do.
The idea that household finances will remain stable is a bit off. We rely on Social Security and Medicare in retirement. It now appears Team DOGE is planning to fire as much as half the staff at the Social Security Administration. There are two determinants of how things are going at the SSA: how well they manage the trust fund, and whether our monthly pension payments arrive on time. Whether they can manage to create the same service with half the staff is doubtful. If nothing else, the SSA has proven to be well-managed, an example of efficient government operations. In February the payments arrived as they normally had. There is uncertainty over whether that will continue to be the case.
Why is there uncertainty? In case you missed it, in week six, the Trump administration is running an amateur hour on most aspects of its management of our government. My feeling is Trump doesn’t really care for the job and all it entails. He outsourced work he should be doing to Elon Musk in an arbitrary appointment as his “special adviser.” Musk obviously has no clue about how the federal government operates. His statement this week, “We’ll make mistakes, won’t be perfect,” at the initial cabinet meeting was far from reassuring. Exactly the opposite. He expects inexperienced billionaires in the cabinet to go along with the slipshod way he is attempting to manage change in governmental agencies. I have to ask where was Trump during his cabinet meeting?
Since the November election, the ultra rich have come out of hiding to loot the treasury. What do I mean by that? On Thursday, 880 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees were fired, and the process of dismantling the agency Americans (and the rest of the world) depend upon for accurate weather forecasting began. NOAA and it’s parent agency the Department of Commerce stiff-armed news reporters about what was going on. The sudden firings raised more questions than they answered about Trump’s approach to government. People need accurate weather forecasts. If under the president’s direction NOAA goes away, some private company may have to take over to provide the service. I guess that is the point of this administration: give all the money to private businesses and the wealthiest among us.
Robert Reich suggested in his Feb. 28 substack article, “An important aspect of the era we’re in is that a record share of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of a small group of people who are now revealing themselves to be remarkably selfish, shameless, and insensitive to the needs of America.” Seriously! Key billionaires were lined up next to the podium at Trump’s swearing in ceremony! The idea people do not like the wealthy is not new.
If the administration tampers with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as they seem intent on doing, regular folks will rise up against the wealthy class. As I’ve written before, “Providing tax cuts to the well-off in Iowa and in the country at the expense of programs less well-off people depend upon is the wrong direction.” If there is a disruption in these three agencies, you don’t need Jeane Dixon to predict an open revolt.
I follow Republican Victoria Spartz from Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. In a recent newsletter, she wrote, “If the GOP does not have the backbone to start fixing healthcare in reconciliation, we have to start a full government takeover now – before we completely bankrupt our country and our people.” In the end, she voted to raise the debt ceiling and borrow another $2.5 Trillion to give to the wealthiest Americans. What Spartz means by “fixing healthcare” isn’t the same thing I, or any normal person, means. Since the GOP does not have any perceivable backbone, it will be up to the rest of us to start a full government takeover, and soon.
I’ve been back on the state park trail for about a week since the cold snap. The debate in the neighborhood is whether winter is over. The consensus seems to be winter is not finished. I maintain winter never really got started this season. The relatively warm temperatures, consistently, and year upon year, mean trouble for us all regardless of what the president does about the endangerment finding.
I have been reading the news and doing my best not to think about it. Very little is positive. Six weeks into the new administration and I feel strong, ready to upgrade my resistance. However, new shrapnel continues to fall from the sky. Better keep my powder dry a bit longer.
Yesterday I planted the second tray of seedlings: spinach, celery and arugula.The seeds were from 2022, so I’m not confident of the germination rate. I ordered new ones which should arrive next week. The spinach and arugula should show quickly whether or not they will germinate.
I have been working on my book daily for the last week. Mostly, the word count is going down as I edit a chapter about the period 1985 until 1987. There are some instances when a quote from my written journal or papers is appropriate. More often, I’m find such texts to be the basis for new writing. As I progress through the book, I believe I will use quotes as a starting point for a draft instead of using them as an actuality that nests in the narrative. This is especially true when I have new insights into what that 30-something man was thinking from a privileged viewpoint in 2025.
Today is the “buy nothing” day and I hope to keep my credit card in my wallet. If I can’t go a few days without buying anything other than emergency items, then what have I been doing the last 70+ years?
These daily blog posts are helpful in getting the writing fluids flowing. The next major change in my intellectual life will be when it is warm and dry enough to work in the garden and yard. Since I missed planting garlic in the fall, that will be the first crop to go into the ground: as soon as the ground dries enough to till the soil. Today we are not there yet.
These days have been the best part of winter. I intend to use them as I can until spring truly arrives.
Black Coat, long cut, with a red flower in the lapel. Top hat rounded, and in good shape. He hung it on the vacuum tank while he worked. Come in. Where is the fire place? Move things around so there is room. Lay out the cloth. Bring in the drum-like vacuum pump, Rods and brushes. Move things out of the fireplace Sweep, lights. Point out problems with fireplace. Clean up gear. Take out gear Sweep hearth with a hand broom. Everything is done methodically. Ford pickup with cover on back, ladders on top, though he did not use them.
Editor’s Note: The following letter was emailed to Iowa U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025. If they reply, I will post below the original letter.
Dear Senators Grassley and Ernst,
A citizen has to work hard these days to stay up with what the federal government is doing. I do my best, and based on my studies, ask you to avoid the reconciliation process to pass a budget. Both Democratic and Republican led Senates have used it. Now is not the time. Here are my reasons.
There are not enough votes to overcome a filibuster of the tax cuts expected from ongoing reconciliation talks. Plain and simple, a majority of voters do not support them. Our senators should consider the will of voters in this regard.
As you know, the House Speaker has not come up with enough savings to offset the $4.5 Trillion expense the proposed reconciliation bill’s tax cuts are expected to incur. Let’s say Speaker Johnson meets his $2 Trillion savings goal. We would still add at least $2.5 Trillion to the national debt to pay for the tax cuts. We would be digging a deeper hole when we need to be filling it in.
From which programs do these proposed savings come? I understand cuts to Medicaid account for about $880 billion, and all are from programs people need and use to survive. Providing tax cuts to the well-off in Iowa and in the country at the expense of programs less well-off people depend upon is the wrong direction.
Those are my main points. To summarize, do not use the reconciliation process to pass the budget. Regular order provides stability I have come to expect from the Congress.
Thank you for your consideration. Regards, Paul Deaton
Do people live paycheck to paycheck? I know I do. My life in commerce revolves around fixed pensions inadequate to cover every financial need. Our budget allows a couple hundred dollars per month for expenses that are not programmed the way loan payments, property taxes, health insurance premiums, home owners/auto insurance, and utilities are. If I save $50 per month at the grocery store, that’s $50 I can spend on whatever expense may crop up. I use a credit card to smooth over cash flow each month.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders spoke about living paycheck to paycheck during a “Fighting Oligarchy” event Saturday in Iowa City. If you have an hour, the video is worth viewing as Sanders has become one of the best explainers among legislators of what is going on in Washington D.C. Find it here.
“Today, the oligarchs and the billionaire class are getting richer and richer and have more and more power,” Sanders said. “Meanwhile, 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and most of our people are struggling to pay for health care, childcare, and housing. This country belongs to all of us, not just the few. We must fight back.”
Sanders’ main ask during his speech was to reach out to Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who won her re-election by about 800 votes, and ask her to vote no on the upcoming final reconciliation bill. I suspect most Iowans don’t understand what that is.
Simply put, if leadership in the Congress does not have enough votes to pass bills in regular order, they can use reconciliation to overcome a potential Senate filibuster. Instead of needing 60 votes, a reconciliation bill only needs a simple majority in the Senate. Miller-Meeks referred to “reconciliation talks” in her Feb. 4 Telephone Town Hall. “You don’t do a lot of policy in the reconciliation. It has to be either revenue or tax based.” Many legislators are in these Republican-dominated talks. Miller-Meeks called Sanders “a radical,” according to the Daily Iowan.
The Daily Iowan reported on Sanders’ stop in Iowa City:
Sanders raised concern over the Reconciliation Bill, proposed legislation spearheaded by Trump which would extend tax cuts. Sanders said the bill will give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the billionaire class.
The tax cut extension would lower rates for almost all Americans, but would benefit the wealthiest taxpayers the most. (Bernie Sanders warns of ‘Trumpism’ at Iowa City event, by Roxy Ekberg, Daily Iowan, Feb. 22, 2025).
The rub is that the U.S. House of Representatives has not been able to offset the estimated $4.5 Trillion expense of tax cuts included in reconciliation with savings in government operations. House Speaker Mike Johnson set a low bar of $2 Trillion in savings and to date has only come up with $1.5 Trillion. From which programs do these savings come? Cuts to Medicaid account for about $880 billion, and all are from programs people need to survive. As I wrote Rep. Miller-Meeks on Saturday, providing tax cuts to the well-off in Iowa and in the country at the expense of programs less well-off people depend upon is the wrong direction.
Because I worked hard and long in a career in transportation and logistics, my pension is substantial enough to mostly make ends meet. The over-use of tax credits will run up the deficit and national debt, and if Republicans insist on a giant tax cut for the well to do, the money to pay for it will come from somewhere. It will come from people like me who live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have much room for extras in our budget.
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